Beyond Words

Try to imagine the last time you had a conversation that didn’t involve a cliché. We often use these “trite phrases or expressions” without a second thought. But have you ever wondered about the etymology of clichés? Let’s spend some...

While many people rang in the new year by watching the ball drop in Times Square or popping champagne, another tradition was celebrated by linguists around the world. As the year came to a close, dictionary companies and language societies...

There are close to 7,000 languages spoken on earth. However, it’s estimated that by the end of this century, up to 50% of them may be lost. Eighty percent of the world’s population now speaks just 1% of its languages,...

More than 50 countries around the world use English as an official language. But you might be surprised to learn that some of the major English-speaking countries, like Australia, the United States and England, are not on this list. So...

As the sun starts to set on October 31, children dressed as ghosts and superheroes go door to door asking for candy. Along their trick-or-treating route, they’ll visit houses decorated with skeletons, spiderwebs and jack-o-lanterns. Halloween is a popular American...

Dirt on your head! Son of an owl! Hit your head on a corner of tofu and die! If you clicked on this article, you’ve probably already surmised that the above phrases are – at least some place on earth...

When the coronavirus pandemic hit and stay-at-home orders were issued, isolation and loneliness set in. We faced the difficult challenge of staying connected with our loved ones while traveling and social gatherings were limited. Luckily, creativity struck, and we started...

Visiting a new place gives you a new perspective on the world. When you travel, you have the chance to engage with different cultures and learn about unique traditions, customs, and languages. But recently, travel has come to a halt....

If “pilot speak” sounds like another language to you, you’re not far off. Aviation English is the internationally-established language of the skies, consisting of about three hundred terms that are a combination of professional jargon and plain English. With the...

Don’t get salty, but slang isn’t new. You might think the idioms you use today are the GOAT, but they could easily go out of fashion in just a few years. Phrases, just like fitness or food trends, come and...

If you have ever studied French, Spanish, or German, you’ve learned about a tricky linguistic nuance that makes learning these languages difficult: noun gendering. In these languages, each noun has an assigned grammatical gender. In Spanish, for example, a mug...

Iceland is a small island nation in the North Atlantic Ocean that is home to about 340,000 people. The Icelandic people trace their origins to Northern Germanic ethnic groups. Only about 350,000 people speak Icelandic worldwide. Most native speakers live...

English speakers use the schwa all the time. It’s our most popular vowel sound, and yet we don’t have any written symbol that corresponds to it. That’s because English spelling – a topic I love to rant and rave about...